RuadoOuvidor

The great artery of the city in the 19th century was Rua do Ouvidor. It was the testing ground for the introduction of European modernity into the city and the marks of French traditions and culture. There a chain of commerce was concentrated, with fashion stores, bookshops, coffeehouses, and other businesses, including newspaper offices. Rua do Ouvidor was part of Rio's urban center along with Rua Direita (now 1° de Março) and Largo do Carmo (now Praça XV), and, since its construction, the street had several names: Desvio do Mar, Rua do Gadelha, de Aleixo Manuel, do Barbalho, de Santa Cruz, da Quitanda, do Padre Homem da Costa, and da Sé Nova, until it became, around 1780, Rua do Ouvidor.

Image description: This is an old photograph of a street in Lisbon, Portugal. The image shows a view of a square with historic buildings. On the left side, there is a building with several windows and balconies, where "ZUP FE" is written. In the center, there is another building with balconies and hanging curtains. On the right, there is a large building with the sign "UNION HOTEL" on its façade. The sky is clear and the lighting suggests the photo was taken during the day.

Rua Direita, corner of Rua do Ouvidor, c. 1866. Photo by Georges Leuzinger - Instituto Moreira Salles. Location 014GLAS109.jpg

Its current name is a tribute to Dr. Francisco Berquó da Silveira, an ombudsman for the district of Rio de Janeiro who arrived from Lisbon in 1780 and went to live in a townhouse on the street, which until then had been known as "Rua do Padre Homem da Costa."

Literature was what most propagated the street's grandeur and splendor, despite its being very narrow, almost an alley. Machado de Assis and Joaquim Manuel de Macedo wrote about the delights of the bookshops, cafés, and confectioneries. When they considered widening it, Machado de Assis protested, saying that the greatest delight of the street's narrowness was being able to have coffee at one confectionery and eat a sweet at another just by stretching out his arms. Luís Edmundo, in

The Rio de Janeiro of My Time,

provides a detailed account of what existed on it, store by store. It was the city's great open-air gallery. Intellectuals, artists, businesspeople, journalists -- all met on this street. For Joaquim Manuel de Macedo (1963, p.9), it was: "[...]the most walked and crowded, and the most frivolous, indiscreet, gossipy, wasteful, futile, sensationalist, polyglot and encyclopedic of all the streets[...]".

At the end of the 19th century, the setting of Rua do Ouvidor not only evoked Paris but also a sense of civilization and progress. Ernst Ebel (1972, p.70), a German traveler, presents his view of the street: "As we enter Rua do Ouvidor, however, we believe ourselves transported to Paris, because the French settled there and, indeed, with that elegance which is peculiar to them."

Image description: This is an old photograph of an urban street. The image shows a narrow street with old buildings on both sides. On the left, there are buildings with balconies and open windows. On the right, there are shops with storefronts and entrance doors. People are walking along the street, some near the shops, others farther away. In the background, other buildings can be seen, including a tall building with a sloped roof.

Rua do Ouvidor by Marc Ferrez - c. 1890 - Instituto Moreira Salles. Location 0071824cx019-05.JPG

In addition to dozens of bookstores, tailors, women's and men's clothing shops, and hairdressers, everything one could imagine finding in Europe was on Rua do Ouvidor, which dictated fashion, reported the latest news, kept the times updated in its shop windows, and modernized the surrounding area. The names of the shops already signaled the shift in references taking hold in nineteenth-century Rio: Madame Dreyfus, Palais Royal, Notre Dame, Raunier, Tour Eiffel. And with it, women gained the freedom to move about, changing their

status

Formerly "iaiás," now mademoiselles.

Image description: This is an old photograph of a library. The image shows a large room with many books on shelves in the background. On the left, there is a staircase with a red carpet. In the central area, we see wooden tables with chairs and hanging lamps. On the right, there is a large metal box with a lid. The floor is made of wood, and the room is lit by hanging lamps.

Interior of the Livraria Garnier, one of the many bookstores on Rua do Ouvidor in the 19th century. Photo taken from the Publishnews website